ROA M IN G T H E H A L L |
CASSANDRA WILLYARD
THE SOUNDS OF SCIENCE Assistant education professor Edmund Adjapong uses hip-hop to engage young students with science.
A
s a kid, Edmund Adjapong didn’t have much
is at the forefront of a burgeoning movement aimed at
use for science class. He didn’t see how
bringing hip-hop into the classroom.
the concepts applied to him and his life.
Studies in 2017, has been a welcome addition to the
immigrants from Ghana. Why should he care
faculty, says Maureen Gillette, dean of the College of
about the inner workings of a cell or the
Education and Human Services. “Not only does he come
chemical reactions happening inside a bea-
with an incredible science background, he brings a lot
ker? None of his teachers made science seem
of practical real-world experience,” she says.
like a viable career option. But in ninth grade, Adjapong enrolled in a physics
Hip-hop has been a part of Adjapong’s life for as long as he can remember. He used to go to school early to
class taught by Christopher Emdin, who wrote and
recite songs with his friends. Some people view hip-hop
performed raps about scientific concepts. He played rap
as simply a genre of music, but for Adjapong it’s the
music videos. Back then many rappers wore enormous
culture of urban youth. “It’s always been a part of my
chains around their necks, and Emdin showed his stu-
identity,” he says. So when he began teaching in the same
dents how the necklaces swung like pendulums. “These
neighborhood he grew up in, he used music to help his
rappers had captured the imaginations of young people,”
students engage, just as Emdin had done.
Emdin says. “So I was going to use them as a mechanism to connect the kids to science.” The gambit worked. Adjapong did well in the class
Meanwhile, Adjapong began pursuing a doctoral degree at Columbia University, believing he could use it to become part of the conversation about science pedagogy and
and began gravitating toward science. “That gave me the
“privilege the voice of students of color — students like me
motivation to feel like I could really pursue science as a
who had negative experiences of school.” Emdin, who had
career,” he says. After high school, Adjapong went on to
become a professor at Columbia, signed on as his adviser.
earn a degree in biochemistry. But rather than becoming a scientist, he became a science educator. Today Adjapong
12
Adjapong, who joined the Department of Educational
Adjapong grew up in the Bronx, the son of
Adjapong began studying the impact of hip-hop in the science classroom. He used his class as a laboratory, but